There are many data processing tasks that lend themselves to optical processing. Optical processing is advantageous because each point of a two dimensional wavefront traveling through an optical element is processed simultaneously. In addition there is virtually no interaction between the separate points of the two dimensional wavefront. In some applications this parallelism is very valuable.
One of the fields where optical data processing is advantageous is that of synthetic aperture radar. These systems are often placed aboard aircraft, spacecraft or other remote platforms. Therefore it would be advantageous to provide a real time optical processor in a lightweight, compact form that uses a minimum of electric power.